In recent years, transportation methods have changed substantially. This change is due in part to a concern over the limited availability of natural resources, a proliferation in personal technology, and a societal shift to adopt more environmentally friendly transportation solutions. These considerations have encouraged the development of a number of new flexible-fuel vehicles, hybrid-electric vehicles, and electric vehicles.
Generally, vehicles rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to provide location data. Transmissions from the orbiting GPS satellites allow a vehicle to triangulate the vehicle's position and associate that position with a digital map or geographic information system (GIS) information to determine the location of the vehicle. Unfortunately, GPS signals can be interfered with by large buildings, canyons, trees, power lines, etc. Thus, it is not always possible to receive a GPS signal. Further, the GPS signal is only accurate to a few meters. A self-driving vehicle can therefore not rely on GPS to determine the exact position of the vehicle as a self-driving vehicle may need locate itself within a lane or roadway that is only a few meters wide and may travel through areas that do not receive a GPS signal